Another mod has been completed: standard 8Mb chips were replaced with 16Mb modules on a Voodoo4 PCI with the extra memory adresses hardwired. After that, strapping configuration for the memory initialisation was modded on the PCB (and finding the right setup was harder than expected). No BIOS mod was required. The card works with no problems in Windows 9x and 2000/XP/2003. Have a look at some pics:

http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/3908/64mbvoodoo4frontvn2.jpg

http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/3303/64mbvoodoo4backrt1.jpg

When the computer starts, it displays 64Mb video RAM:

http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/5281/64mbvoodoo4bootff0.jpg

Ofcourse, it was time to test the modded 64Mb card against the regular 32Mb Voodoo4 PCI.

3DMark 2001SE Voodoo4 32Mb No AA: 1563 points

http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/9181/raziel32noaacb2.jpg

3DMark 2001SE Voodoo4 64Mb No AA: 1686 points

http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/8155/raziel64noaaox1.jpg

3DMark 2001SE Voodoo4 32Mb 2x AA: 690 points

http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/449/raziel32aa2xbb8.jpg

3DMark 2001SE Voodoo4 64Mb 2x AA: 867 points

http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/4568/raziel64aa2xsb4.jpg

To summarise: we have 123 3DMarks in No AA mode and 177 3DMarks in 2x AA mode counting as the performance gain by adding 32Mb video memory.
As always, I will soon provide detailed instructions about how to replicate yourself this mod.
My thanks go to G1nX/RaverX for offering me the chance to work on theyr card and especialy to Rolo01 for the over the years help and support.

Great work Komponent!!! You really are hammering these mods out in a timely fashion.  The card(s) look awemazing!!! (awesome and amazing)

Keep up the good work!!  8-)

Thank you Komponent for making all these premiers possible. It's great that the V4 PCI works without issues on win98/2k/XP. Hope that the driver issues with the v5 agp will be solved with a new driver pack so that we can really appreciate the dual gpu + extra memory.
Great work thank you once again.

Not so much enthusiasm about this mod, I see... Oh well... anyway, I want to provide the details about the steps to be taken to do it yourself, but I failed to borrow a digital camera, so if one of you could please provide a high-res picture of the back of a Voodoo4 PCI it would be of great help. Thanks.

Cool! :) Good work.

Fairly cool stuff, good job indeed :)

Now if there was only a way to avoid those wires (basically make it look more sleek)... I'm thinking of a custom Cooler with a 3dfx Logo that just sits over all the hard-modded wires and such, for example ;)

Here ya go!  ;)

http://www.abload.de/thumb/4500front1zc.jpg

http://www.abload.de/thumb/4500rearbaw.jpg

Thanks alot, Rottentrearts! In the picture bellow I have marked the mods to be performed on the Voodoo4 PCI to have a fully functional 64Mb device:

http://abload.de/thumb/pci4500modn6kci.jpg

Happy, happy soldering!

The little Dragon all grown up:
http://img9.uploadhouse.com/fileuploads/3613/3613039-100x100-0e4a642b24221f5eb38aadc16ccbf278.jpg

And some comparison tests:
System used Tyan S2466MPX with 2xMP2800+ and 2Gb ECC Reg.

V4 32Mb @166Mhz NoAA PCI33
http://img8.uploadhouse.com/fileuploads/3613/3613068-100x100-0d11adf641d8348d6bd8eb99aae8db5a.jpg
V4 32Mb @166 NoAA PCI66
http://img7.uploadhouse.com/fileuploads/3613/3613077-100x100-f958e4d5b07b3ef18fb59c1ac8c72724.jpg

V4 64Mb @166 NoAA PCI66
http://img2.uploadhouse.com/fileuploads/3613/3613082-100x100-dbf99f54e2d5d5b51fcb96302336be51.jpg

And a little OC with no artifacts present and perfectly stable:
V4 64Mb @183 NoAA PCI66
http://img1.uploadhouse.com/fileuploads/3613/3613091-100x100-71c5729cbb88dc88dbb4c967c8d7eeb1.jpg

When using the PCI-X slot the performance in near to that of a v4 agp.

Thank you Komponent for making this possible.

A new modded Voodoo4 PCI with 64Mb, this time for Rottentreats:

http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/3820/rottenv4pcim.jpg

As always, congrats on another great mod Komponent!  (of course this latest edition probably means a bit more to me than anyone else)  It really is great to see these cards being modded by you.  It is just crazy to think what the reaction would have been back in the day if this was being done.  Hell, its 2009 and I am still shocked  :o

Keep up the great work!  ;)

Wow!

And how ?

Nice work, I'm sure if I tried that it would be an epic fail.

My friend Gino sent me a V4-4500 pci MAC version. Idea is adding extra mem, tv-out and upgrade vsa-100 chip.

Here the nice card.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4383540/reworks/v4mac_pci_gino/v4%4064_tv.jpg

All was great but I had a lot of troubles with TV-OUT. Once I added all the components. I used a V3 3000 as donant . I found problems since I would need an original V4 proto TV/DVI out to unsolder / re-solder smd components and check values for Resistor, Condenstor and Inductors.

With all the smd components installed card does not want boots up. Card was detected via PCI.EXE but not sign in the monitor. When I tried update bios, program detected it as UKNOWN 3Dfx board. Once I removed all the smd compoents card booted up ok. At the moment project is stoped, but card works smoothly with extra memory but NOT TV-OUT funtion though.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4383540/reworks/v4mac_pci_gino/v4pci%4064mb.jpg

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4383540/reworks/v4mac_pci_gino/v4pci%4064mb-2xfsaa.jpg

Regards,
Oscar.

Still, very nicely done!

must be very expensive to ask you for modding a card like that.

For example, making a V5500AGP a 128mb instead of 64mb.

But then again, it must be worth it more if you have a MAC edition flash to PCI so you get the much better DVI connector.

Not sure the question was for me, sorry if it was not, but to give an answer, yes it could be expensive. I would ask for 15 Euro for my work and that would add to the shipping cost and most important the cost of the 4 16Mb memory chips that you would have to source.

so if i can provide the cards which have the 16mb chips, i would have to pay both shippings + 15 Euros for the work?

Something like that... Beware, 16Mb TSOP86 SDRAM chips are kind of elusive...

so you can take SDRAM from SDRAM sticks? or they have to come from video cards?

Never seen them on sticks.

RaptorZX3 wrote on 02.11.13 at 18:08:52:

so you can take SDRAM from SDRAM sticks? or they have to come from video cards?

Nope, you need TSOP86 RAM chips. 86 stands for the amount of pins!

AFAIK very few VGA used these kind of RAM chips in the past, the napalm 3dfx cards, the Kyro2 cards and some elusive ASUS/Geforce cards with very fast SDRAM. Dunno if there are others possible donors, but they must be unknown at the moment.

so ONLY those RAM chips will work?

I have 2 Kyro II cards with 5ns ram if I remember correctly,'both are 64MB cards

will have a look tonight and let ya guys know.

weren't there some geforce2 MX models that used that same sort of ram?

So, say I do have the Kyro II and I would ask you to mod my 5500MAC with the ram from the KyroII, resulting in still 64MB, but faster ram, able to run 200Mhz, how much would that cost me?

I would pay for shipping of the cards both ways and would supply all the materials needed, except for soldering stuff.......how much would that cost me?

ultima wrote on 08.11.13 at 11:55:13:

I have 2 Kyro II cards with 5ns ram if I remember correctly,'both are 64MB cards will have a look tonight and let ya guys know. weren't there some geforce2 MX models that used that same sort of ram?

I think I have 5 or 6 of those boards upstairs.

So they could be used as well...I checked, only 1 left I think, couldn't find the 2nd one

guys, pls give me an advice. i'm trying to increase memory to 64mb on v4 pci. i'm alredy have done this:

mcs0 and mcs1 wire to gnd thru 4.7kom
pins no21 from top chips wire to vtp10
pins no21 from right chips wire to vtp11
remove r536

bios shows 64mb but win98 crashes immediately after boot (explorer exception). when i solder r536 back everything is ok, but only 32mb. other cards with double memory working ok (v4 agp, v5 pci). what can i try to solve problem?

Check the card for shorts.

In the meanwhile post PCB date code of both working and not working Voodoo4. Better would be some hi-res shots of the work you done on both cards.

here it is:
http://www.naviburg.ru/tmp/4/12.jpg

I meant the whole board, hi-res front and back, so we can check for shorts.

is any shorts possible, if with r536 on it place everything is ok?